From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Ken Brown Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: [Emacs-diffs] emacs-25 f8208b6: Document the user-level features of the Xref package Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2016 15:38:58 -0500 Message-ID: <56A687E2.7000300@cornell.edu> References: <20160109191428.26341.44105@vcs.savannah.gnu.org> <5691C9D2.7080905@yandex.ru> <83egdpmo1j.fsf@gnu.org> <56929D6F.2050508@yandex.ru> <834melmfa4.fsf@gnu.org> <5692B1E0.8010100@yandex.ru> <831t9pma4e.fsf@gnu.org> <5693FDFA.2070607@yandex.ru> <83ziwbkj5l.fsf@gnu.org> <5694055E.6050201@yandex.ru> <83si1udcaz.fsf@gnu.org> <569D64AC.1060606@yandex.ru> <83powxbh6c.fsf@gnu.org> <569EB04F.800@yandex.ru> <8337tsc133.fsf@gnu.org> <56A05073.5090100@yandex.ru> <83powu96yo.fsf@gnu.org> <56A1277B.9080001@yandex.ru> <83a8ny92rg.fsf@gnu.org> <56A1357B.2020601@yandex.ru> <8360ym8zvk.fsf@gnu.org> <56A13B4C.6040101@yandex.ru> <831t9a8yik.fsf@gnu.org> <56A434E4.7030104@yandex.ru> <838u3f3si0.fsf@gnu.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1453754376 14678 80.91.229.3 (25 Jan 2016 20:39:36 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 25 Jan 2016 20:39:36 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Eli Zaretskii , Dmitry Gutov Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Jan 25 21:39:24 2016 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1aNnv2-0000L1-Mc for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 25 Jan 2016 21:39:24 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:40749 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aNnv2-00074X-5i for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 25 Jan 2016 15:39:24 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:39726) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aNnun-00074C-P6 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 25 Jan 2016 15:39:10 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aNnuk-0004eB-Iv for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 25 Jan 2016 15:39:09 -0500 Original-Received: from limerock04.mail.cornell.edu ([128.84.13.244]:46945) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1aNnuk-0004do-En; Mon, 25 Jan 2016 15:39:06 -0500 X-CornellRouted: This message has been Routed already. Original-Received: from authusersmtp.mail.cornell.edu (granite4.serverfarm.cornell.edu [10.16.197.9]) by limerock04.mail.cornell.edu (8.14.4/8.14.4_cu) with ESMTP id u0PKd0ip019151; Mon, 25 Jan 2016 15:39:01 -0500 Original-Received: from [10.13.22.4] (65-112-130-194.dia.static.qwest.net [65.112.130.194]) (authenticated bits=0) by authusersmtp.mail.cornell.edu (8.14.4/8.12.10) with ESMTP id u0PKcvO5010863 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES128-SHA bits=128 verify=NOT); Mon, 25 Jan 2016 15:38:58 -0500 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/38.5.1 In-Reply-To: <838u3f3si0.fsf@gnu.org> X-MIME-Autoconverted: from 8bit to quoted-printable by limerock04.mail.cornell.edu id u0PKd0ip019151 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 3.x X-Received-From: 128.84.13.244 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:198812 Archived-At: I have a couple of suggestions, based on my experience when I tried to=20 use Xref for the first time. First, paragraph b of the Xref info node talks about etags, with a=20 reference to the subnode on creating tags tables. It would have helped=20 me if there had been a further sentence saying that a user has to give=20 the command M-x visit-tags-table before Xref will use etags as the=20 backend. This sentence would be accompanied by a reference to the=20 subnode on selecting a tags table. That node is currently listed in the=20 Menu, but it's not obvious (or at least wasn't obvious to me) what the=20 relevance was, especially since the description of that node refers to=20 *visiting* a tags table rather than telling Xref to using one. Second, I suggest that Xref should offer to use etags as the backend=20 when a TAGS file exists in the current directory. I had the following experience in my first attempt to use Xref: After reading the Xref node and glancing at the "Creating Tags Tables"=20 node, I remembered that there was a 'tags' target in the top level=20 Makefile of the emacs tree, so I gave the command 'make tags' to create=20 the TAGS files. Then I visited a C file in the src directory and tried=20 'M-.' on an identifier. The result was the error message 'Symbol=92s=20 function definition is void: etags--xref-backend'. I didn't know what=20 to do with that message, so I went back to the Xref node to see if it=20 would tell me how to tell Xref to use etags as backend. It didn't, but=20 I finally tried M-x visit-tags-table, and it worked. Ken